Almost all aircraft are equipped with exterior lighting systems. For example, large commercial aircraft have many different exterior lights. An exemplary group of exterior aircraft lights are lights for passive visibility, such as navigation lights and anti-collision lights. Another exemplary group of exterior aircraft lights are headlights that allow the pilots to view the area in front of them, when they are seated in the cockpit, such as taxi lights, take-off lights, landing lights, and runway turn-off lights. Yet another example of exterior aircraft lights are scan lights that allow the inspection of the aircraft structure in the dark, such as wing scan lights.
Many exterior aircraft lights suffer from water and/or moisture build-up within the inner space of the exterior aircraft light. In particular, after landing of an aircraft and turning off the exterior aircraft lights, humid air might enter an exterior aircraft light, which may be heated due to its previous operation, and condense on the lens cover and/or accumulate as water within the exterior aircraft light, as a response to the exterior aircraft light cooling down. The presence of moisture and/or water within the exterior aircraft light may degrade its light output. In particular, the moisture and/or water may fog or blur the light output of the exterior aircraft light. Previous approaches of dealing with the build-up of moisture and/or water have not been entirely satisfactory.
Accordingly, it would beneficial to provide an exterior aircraft light that effectively deals with moisture and/or water present in the inner space of the exterior aircraft light. Further, it would be beneficial to provide an aircraft equipped with such exterior aircraft light(s).